"I'm Davy Roth, zur," I whispered, for I was much afraid. "My mother's
dead an' buried, zur."
"I saw you," said he, "in the room--that night."
There was a long pause. Then, "What's _your_ name, zur?" I asked him.
"Mine?"
"Ay."
"Mine," said he, "is Luke--"
He stopped--and thoughtfully frowned. I waited; but he said no more.
"Doctor Luke?" I ventured.
"Well," he drawled, "that will serve."
Then I thought I must tell him what was in my heart to say. Why not? The
wish was good, and his soft, melancholy voice irresistibly appealed to
my raw and childish sympathies.
"I wisht, zur," I whispered, looking down at my boots, through sheer
embarrassment, "that you----"
My tongue failed me. I was left in a sad lurch. He was not like our
folk--not like our folk, at all--and I could not freely speak my mind.
"Yes?" he said, to encourage me.
"That you wasn't so sad," I blurted, with a rush, looking swift and deep
into his gray eyes.
"Why not?" said he, taking my hand.
"I'm not wantin' you t' be."
He put his arm over my shoulder. "Why not?" he asked. "Tell me why not,
won't you?"
The corners of my mouth fell. It may have been in sympathetic response
to the tremolo of feeling in his voice. I was in peril of unmanly tears
(as often chanced in those days)--and only women, as I knew, should see
lads weep. I hid my face against him.
"Because, zur," I said, "it makes me sad, too!"
He sat down and drew me to his knee. "This is very strange," he said,
"and very kind. You would not have me sad?" I shook my head. "I do not
understand," he muttered. "It is very strange." (But it was not strange
on our coast, where all men are neighbours, and each may without shame
or offense seek to comfort the other.) Then he had me tell him tales of
our folk, to which he listened with interest so eager that I quickly
warmed to the diversion and chattered as fast as my tongue would wag. He
laughed at me for saying "nar" for not (and the like) and I at him for
saying "cawm" for calm; and soon we were very merry, and not only merry,
but as intimate as friends of a lifetime. By and by I took him to see
the Soldier's Ear, which is an odd rock near the Rat Hole, and, after
that, to listen to the sea coughing and gurgling at the bottom of
Satan's Well. And in all this he forgot that he was sad--and I that my
mother was dead.
"Will you walk with me to-morrow, Davy?" he asked, when I said that I
must be off home.
"That I will, zur," said I.
"After breakfast."
"Ay, zur; a quarter of five."
"Well, no," he drawled. "Half after nine."
"'Tis a sheer waste o' time," I protested. "But 'twill suit me, zur, an
it pleases you. My sister will tell _me_ the hour."
"Your sister?" he asked, quickly.
"Bessie," said I.
"Ah," he exclaimed, "she was your sister. I saw her there--that night.
And she is your sister?"
"You got it right," cried I, proudly. "_That's_ my sister!"
He slapped me on the back (which shocked me, for our folk are not that
playful); and, laughing heartily as he went, he took the road to Tom
Tot's, where he had found food and housing for a time. I watched him
from the turn in the road, as he went lightly down the slope towards
South Tickle--his trim-clad, straight, graceful figure,
broad-shouldered, clean-cut, lithe in action, as compared with our
lumbering gait; inefficient, 'tis true, but potentially strong. As I
walked home, I straightened my own shoulders, held my head high, lifted
my feet from the ground, flung bold glances to right and left, as I had
seen him do: for, even then, I loved him very much. All the while I was
exultantly conscious that a new duty and a new delight had come to me:
some great thing, given of God--a work to do, a happiness to cherish.
And that night he came and went in my dreams--but glorified: his smile
not mirthless, his grave, gray eyes not overcast, his face not flabby
and flushed, his voice not slow and sad, but vibrant with fine, live
purpose. My waking thought was the wish that the man of the hills might
be the man of my vision; and in my simple morning petition it became a
prayer.
"Dear mama," I prayed, "there's something wrong along o' the man who
come the night you died. He've managed somehow t' get wonderful sick.
I'm not knowin' what ails un, or where he cotched it; but I sees it
plain in his face: an' 'tis a woeful sickness. Do you make haste t' the
throne o' God, please, mum, an' tell Un I been askin' you t' have un
cured. You'd want un well, too, an you was here; an' the Lard 'll surely
listen t' you, an' take your word for 't. Oh, do you pray the Lard,
with all your might an' main, dear mama, t' heal that man!"
* * * * *
In our land the works of the Lord are not obscured by what the hands of
men have made. The twofold vision ranges free and far. Here are no brick
walls, no unnatural need or circumstance, no confusing inventions, no
gasping haste, no specious distractions, no clamour of wheel and
heartless voices, to blind the soul, to pervert its pure desires, to
deaden its fears, to deafen its ears to the sweeter calls--to shut it
in, to shrivel it: to sicken it in every part. Rock and waste of sea and
the high sweep of the sky--winds and rain and sunlight and flying
clouds--great hills, mysterious distances, flaming sunsets, the still,
vast darkness of night! These are the mighty works of the Lord, and of
none other--unspoiled and unobscured. In them He proclaims Himself. They
who have not known before that the heavens and the earth are the
handiwork of God, here discover it: and perceive the Presence and the
Power, and are ashamed and overawed. Thus our land works its marvel in
the sensitive soul. I have sometimes thought that in the waste is
sounded the great keynote of life--with which true hearts ever seek to
vibrate in tune.